Medical reporters have a lot to learn

Add comment May 29th, 2008

Lorna Benson of Minnesota Public Radio recently wrote a story about a new analysis of medical news coverage. One of the most common problems found in journalists’ reports on medical treatments, she noted: failure to “adequately discuss the price a consumer might have to pay for a new drug, device or test.” What’s more, Benson wrote, “about 65 percent of the medical stories didn’t mention whether there was any possibility of harm associated with a particular treatment.”

Benson’s article summarized the findings of University of Minnesota journalism professor Gary Schwitzer and his reviewers, who have been rating the quality of health intervention stories by U.S. newspapers, news magazines, television networks and wire services. Their findings were published in the Public Library of Science journal, “PLoS Medicine.”  You can link to that report here. 

Schwitzer said the report summarized his team’s first two years of grading health stories on their own Web site, HealthNewsReview.org.   I’ll be visiting and learning.